Nothing To Lose

Hunter really didn’t want her there. Each visit he told her not to come again, to contact him by phone if she needed to talk to him. But each Monday evening she girded herself for the ordeal of another visit.

She hated it, but she would keep coming every Tuesday until hell froze over, or until Hunter was free.

As horrible as it was to see her brother under the harsh, dehumanizing conditions at the prison—to watch him harden a little more each week—she knew she would continue to make this trip across the valley, past housing developments and shopping malls and warehouses.

If nothing else, each visit to her brother’s hell renewed her determination to see him out of there.

She drew in a deep breath and fought the urge to press a hand to her knotted stomach as she watched the mile markers slip past.

When she was younger, her father had taken her and Hunter this way a few times on business trips out of the valley to southern Utah or Las Vegas. She had never given it much thought, other than to wonder at this scary huddle of buildings that seemed out in the middle of nowhere.

She found it disconcerting to realize how in eighteen months the Point of the Mountain complex had become so much a part of her life.

The valley’s population had grown dramatically in the past decade and houses had sprung up within a stone’s throw of the prison complex. Draper and Bluffdale were two of the fastest-growing communities in the state. How odd, she thought, that South Mountain, to the east of the prison across the freeway, was actually one of the more desirable slices of real estate in the valley, with sprawling, million-dollar homes and groomed golf courses.

She wondered if Hunter could look across the interstate at all those bright, shiny houses—if the contrast between the world of those who lived in them and his own life seemed as stark and depressing to him as it always did to her.

She took the prison exit and a few moments later passed the first of many security checkpoints. The guard recognized her but checked her driver’s license against his visitor list anyway, before allowing her to enter. Cars weren’t searched entering the prison—only on the way out.

In the visitor parking lot, she sat for a moment behind the wheel, trying to dig deep inside herself for at least the semblance of a positive attitude. For Hunter’s sake, she tried hard to hide how much she hated coming here, how each visit seemed to bleed away more of her hope that her brother would walk free.

Just for practice, she forced a smile for the rearview mirror. Okay, it wasn’t exactly perky but it was better than nothing.

With her non-perky smile firmly in place, she locked her car, pocketed her keys—since purses weren’t allowed inside—and headed into the Uinta maximum security prison for the next round of checkpoints.

The guard waiting inside was the first bright spot in what had been a grim day. He offered her a wide, sunny smile. “Doc Bradshaw. This is a pleasure.”

Her smile felt almost genuine as she greeted Richard Gonzolez. She didn’t bother to correct him that she was several credits shy of ever being a doctor. He had called her Doc Bradshaw as long as she had been coming to see her brother.

Richard was one of her favorite guards in the unit—some of the corrections officers made her feel even more like a piece of meat than did the leering inmates, but Officer Gonzolez always treated her with courtesy and respect and even kindness.

“Great to see you again!” she said. “I’ve missed you these last few months. I thought Tuesdays were your day off.”

“I’m back on for a while. I needed to change my shift so I could have Fridays off instead.”

“How’s Trina?” Taylor asked about his wife.

His ready smile looked a little strained around the edges. “Could be worse, I guess. She was tired of her hair falling out in clumps so she shaved it all last week. I told her it looks sexy—told her I was gonna get her a belly ring and a tattoo and take her down to the Harley-Davidson shop for some leathers so she’d look like a biker chick.”

“I guess she didn’t go for that.”

“Not my Trina.” He met her gaze and the worry in his brown eyes made her heart ache. “She tries to stay upbeat for me and the kids but it’s been tough on her. That’s why the shift change. She’s onto her second round of chemo and they changed the day to Fridays. I didn’t want her to do that on her own.”

A dozen questions crowded through her mind—Trina’s white blood cell counts, her med regimen, how she was doing emotionally after her radical mastectomy—but she managed to clamp down on them. Despite Richard’s affectionate nickname for her, she wasn’t a doctor. An almost-doctor, maybe, but she hadn’t been part of that world for a long time.

“Trina is in good hands with Dr. Kim. He’s the best around.”

“That’s one of the things that keeps her going. We both know we never would have gotten in to see him if it hadn’t been for you.”

Taylor just shook her head. “I didn’t do anything, only pulled a few strings.”

“Well, we sure appreciate it.”

Under other circumstances, she would have given his hand a reassuring squeeze, but she knew this wasn’t the time or place. “Please let me know how things are going.”

“I sure will,” he said, with a smile that filled her with shame at her own self-pity.

This kind man’s wife was waging a fierce, losing battle against breast cancer and he could still manage to smile. All she had to do was spend an hour in a place she loathed. Surely she could be at least as cheerful as Richard Gonzolez.

“Sorry to tell you this,” the guard said, “but you’ll have to wait a few minutes. Your brother already has a visitor in the last group. Time’s almost up, though.”

That was odd. Hunter rarely had visitors besides her. They had no other family and her brother had never been much of a pack animal. Most of his so-called friends had abandoned him after his arrest. She wondered who it might be.

“I don’t mind waiting,” she assured the guard, then took her seat with the other visitors waiting their turn.

She had never been very good at coping with unexpected blocks of free time. Usually she tried to carry around at least one law book at all times so she could use her time constructively and keep up with her reading lists—probably a hold-over from the judge’s frequent edicts against wasting time.

In this case, she had no choice, as she’d left all her books in her car. She picked up a news magazine and tried to leaf through it but found little of interest.

She was trying a woman’s magazine—with much the same malaise—when the volume in the room increased as the previous group of visitors was led out.

She recognized a few familiar faces and was once more struck by how insular this prison community could be. She had watched people make friendships, business connections, even romances while they waited to visit someone on the inside.

A few minutes later, she had risen to wait her turn to go into the visiting area when a familiar face appeared in the crowd—this one unexpected.

Wyatt McKinnon walked out, looking tall and lanky and gorgeous.

The same reaction she’d had to him the other times they’d met started stirring around inside her. The same butterflies in her stomach, the same silly breathlessness, the same surge of awareness.

What was the matter with her? This wasn’t at all like her. She just wasn’t the kind of woman to lose brain cells over a man. Especially not this man—and especially not in these circumstances.

She drew in a deep, steadying breath. He hadn’t seen her yet, she realized as she watched him stop to exchange words with one of the guards—not Richard but another she had met only a few times.

Wyatt greeted the man with a ready smile, though from here it looked as if it dimmed a little when the corrections officer produced a book from beneath the desk. From here she could see it was Wyatt’s latest bestseller. The guard wanted it signed, she realized, just like all those silly little coeds who had flocked to the lecture the other night.

She couldn’t be too derisive of them, she thought with brutal self-honesty. Not with her pulse skipping and this weak trembling in her stomach.

Wyatt signed the book with a flourish, handed it back to the guard with a polite smile, then turned to leave.

She knew exactly the moment he noticed her. Surprise flickered in those grey-green eyes and he froze for an instant, then walked toward her.

“Taylor. Ms. Bradshaw. I didn’t realize your brother had another visitor waiting. I’m sorry—I’m afraid I went a little long. I hope I didn’t take all your time.”

A few days earlier she might have given him some sharp reply about how her time was just as valuable as his, but she decided that wouldn’t be diplomatic, not if she still wanted his help.

In theory, Kate’s idea had seemed a good one. Wyatt McKinnon could be a powerful ally. His words had influence, and she had just seen more evidence that he had readers everywhere. If she wanted his help, she knew she would have to ask for it. But being confronted by the man made her tongue feel as slippery as a hooked trout.

“He’s still allowed another half hour of visitation.” She sucked in a breath for courage. “Listen, I…”

Richard cut her off. “Doc Bradshaw, you’re up. You ready to go back?”

She rose, aware as always of the time and how limited it was.

She had learned since Hunter’s arrest that life behind bars was ruled by the clock. Inmates talked of marking time, doing time, hard time. Their world revolved around the tick of each passing second.

“Look, I’ve got to go or I’ll miss my chance. Would you mind…that is, um—” she faltered. Oh, this was hard! She would rather be foxtrotting with the sweaty-palmed Troy Oppenheimer who had been the bane of her dance-class days than be forced to grovel to Wyatt McKinnon.

But she had no choice.

“Would you mind waiting for me?” she asked in a rush. “I…I need to talk to you.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise but he nodded. “Of course. I’ll be here when you come out.”

The guard led her to one of the visitor chambers. In the maximum security unit, visits were always non-contact and were carried out in individual rooms separated by a Plexiglas divider.

Hunter was already on the other side of the glass, dressed in the obligatory orange jumpsuit. His dark, wavy hair could use a trim and he had a bruise along his jawline that hadn’t been there the week before.

He looked big and mean and dangerous, and she grieved all over again for the dedicated, passionate cop he had been.

He didn’t smile when he saw her, but she thought perhaps his eyes softened a little. She wanted to believe they did, anyway, though she thought that was probably just more self-delusion.

Every time she visited him, Hunter seemed a little colder, a little more remote. Hard and brittle, like a clay sculpture left to dry too long in the broiling sun.

She was so afraid that one Tuesday she would discover nothing left of him but a crumbled pile of dust.

“What happened to your jaw?” she asked after she sat down and picked up the phone.

That jaw tightened. “Nothing. I slipped in the yard while I was shooting hoops one day.”

He was lying. She had grown up with him, had seen him butting heads with the judge during his rebellious years often enough to recognize the signs. But she also knew he would choke on his own tongue rather than tell her what really happened.

Former cops—especially homicide detectives—didn’t exactly make the most popular prison inmates. She knew there were plenty of other inmates he had helped put behind bars who probably weren’t too thrilled to have Hunter Bradshaw join them in the pen. And though he would never say anything about it, she also knew most of the guards treated him with a contempt and derision reserved for one of their rank who had gone bad.

Oh, how she hated this. She hid her sisterly concern and brought out that smile she had practiced in her car earlier, though it felt cheesier than usual.

“I ran into Wyatt McKinnon out in the visitor waiting room. How often is he coming to talk with you?”

His sigh came over the phone loud and clear. “Don’t start in on this again, Tay.”

“What? I didn’t say anything.”

“No, but you have that what the hell are you thinking? look on your face.”

“You’re imagining things. Must be the lighting in here.”

“Lighting my ass. I know what you think about McKinnon.”

Don’t be so sure, she wanted to say but held her tongue.

Hunter went on. “He told me you went to see him last week. He said you asked him not to write the story.”

Okay, it had been a lousy idea. She had known it even before she went to the bookstore, but she had never been very good at inaction. When something was wrong in her world, she tried to take steps to fix it.

“It didn’t do much good, did it? He’s still here today.”

“You think I’m crazy to talk to him, don’t you.”

She thought of all her many objections to Wyatt writing a book about the case. Her biggest fear was that it would make life even harder for Hunter here behind bars.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” she answered. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Somebody’s going to write the story. We both know it’s only a matter of time. I’m surprised nobody has done it yet. If not McKinnon, it will be someone else, and frankly, I prefer him to some of the bottom-feeders who’ve tried to get interviews with me. McKinnon talked to me a few times about other cases when I was on the job and actually quoted me correctly. From what I’ve seen of his work, I figure he’ll at least try to be fair. He cared enough to attend the trial, not just rely on court transcripts.”

“That’s true. He was there every day. I wonder why he’s just now writing the story.”

“A few reasons, I suppose. I only decided to talk to him a few months ago and I do know he had to finish another project before he could write this one.” He paused. “Today he told me he would like to talk to you. I’m sure he wants to know what it was like growing up with a vicious killer.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she shot back quickly.

Hunter’s short laugh echoed in the phone. That was why she continued these torturous visits. If she could make him laugh even once, everything was worth it.

“Will you talk to him?”

She sighed. “I already planned to. He’s waiting for me to finish up my visit.”

“Really?”

“Kate seems to think convincing Wyatt McKinnon you’re innocent might help your appeal. I would like to show him all the evidence that was thrown out at trial that proves you could never have killed anyone.”

He shook his head in resignation, but there was a warmth in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in a long while.

“You never did know when to give up the fight, did you. Remember when you brought home that stray mutt and the Judge said under no conditions would that mangy thing ever be allowed in our house? You hid him at Suzie Walker’s house down the street and spent weeks wearing the Judge down.”

She smiled at the memory. “I think what finally did the trick was the ten-page research paper I did—complete with footnotes and annotations—outlining how child development experts believe pets can be beneficial to young minds.”

“That’s funny. I thought it was the amateur ad campaign you shot of you taking care of Rascal down at Suzy Walker’s—feeding him, walking him, teaching him tricks.”

“I miss that dog. You know, he would have died before admitting it but I think the Judge warmed up to Rascal eventually. After you moved out, I even caught him petting him a few times.”

Hunter unbent enough to smile—or as close as he came to a smile these days anyway. Too quickly, though, he sobered. “You’re not going to win this one, Tay. You need to face facts here. God knows, I have. Life is a hell of a lot easier to deal with after you stop holding on to foolish hope.”

“Without hope, what else do you have?”

He didn’t answer, but she saw the truth in the bleakness of his eyes. Nothing. He had nothing. She wouldn’t have thought it possible but her heart cracked apart a little more.

Before she could respond, the guard walked up behind Hunter. “Time’s up,” he said, his features stony.

Oh, she hated time, especially each reminder that it was quickly running out.

“I haven’t given up hope,” she said urgently into the phone, wishing more than anything that she could throw her arms around her brother. “I will never give up hope, Hunter. You did nothing wrong and I will do whatever it takes to prove that to the world.”

Whatever brief moment of levity they had shared over the memory of a stray mutt, Hunter had once more donned that impassive mask. “Don’t waste your life on me, Tay. I’m not worth it. Go back and finish your residency. Be a doctor. Help people.”

She wanted that—oh, how she wanted that—but right now she had other work.

“I’ll see you next Tuesday,” she said.

He looked as if he wanted to argue, but the guard roughly snapped on the transfer handcuffs and led him out of the room.

She watched him go, his back tall and straight, and wondered how much more of him would crumble away before next Tuesday.

Wyatt never minded waiting.

He considered it research, a rare and wonderful chance to study people in a variety of situations, the whole rich texture of the human experience.

He spent the twenty minutes he waited for Taylor cataloguing the others in the waiting room, wondering about their stories, imagining the journeys their lives had taken to lead them to this point.

As he did wherever he went, his mind recorded impressions as he looked around the room.

He saw an older woman with stunning blue eyes and a face etched with character holding tight to the arms of her chair, her spine straight and her feet in their sensible brown shoes precisely lined up on the floor. Was she here to see a son or a grandson? he wondered.

Across the room sat a man of about fifty with a tattoo of an American flag just below his shirtsleeve and an Elvis-like pompadour and sideburns. He was a mechanic, Wyatt figured, at least judging by the grime under his fingernails and the faint shadow of permanent oil stains on the knees of his jeans. The man fidgeted and glanced at the clock every few moments while pretending to leaf through a hot-rod magazine.

Nearest the door to the visiting area sat a pregnant girl who couldn’t have been a day older than eighteen, her belly stretched beneath a blue T-shirt that exposed a few inches of skin above her low-rider jeans. She chewed gum loudly and looked bored to tears, but every once in a while she paused to lay a loving hand across her stomach and her heavily made-up features would soften with a warm maternal glow.

No, he didn’t mind waiting. This was life, gritty and real.

He was making a few notes from his conversation with Hunter in the steno notebook he had carried in with him when the man’s sister walked through the checkpoint.

She wasn’t a frail woman by any means, but for just a moment as she paused there at the entrance to the waiting room, she looked fragile, brittle almost. When she caught sight of him, he watched her take a deep breath and then paste on a polite smile as she walked toward him with a grace that seemed out of place here.

“Mr. McKinnon. Thank you for waiting.”

She was extraordinarily beautiful, he thought, with that luminous skin and those dark blue eyes. He wondered if she had any idea how fresh and lovely she looked here in these grim surroundings, even with exhaustion stamped on her features.

“No problem. I didn’t mind, especially since I cut into your time with your brother.”

She looked as if she wanted to say something, then changed her mind.

“I wanted to apologize for the other night at your book signing, for coming on so strong,” she said after a moment. “I suppose I’m a little too protective of Hunter. He tells me I am, anyway.”

“It’s natural in this situation. Perfectly understandable. You want to make everything right again for him, the way things were before all of this happened.”

“I can’t do that.” The bleakness in her voice gave him the oddest urge to pull her into his arms.

“Probably not.” He debated the wisdom of his next words, then threw caution to the wind. “Your brother knows his own mind. Despite the fact that most of his life is out of his control now and other people now tell him when he can shower and what he can eat, he’s not helpless. He has his reasons for wanting to tell his story and he trusts me not to write a ‘salacious’ book. Maybe you should too.”

She winced at his deliberate use of her word from the other night. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve read a few of your books and none of them were salacious. I’m sure this one wouldn’t be either.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and he was struck by the pale tracery of veins in her eyelids. She had the delicate skin of a redhead but she still looked as if she had spent too much time indoors lately.

When she opened her eyes again there was a determined light in them. “You’re right, Hunter wants you to do this book and he’s asked me to cooperate with you. I can do little enough to help him, but at least I can do this.”

“Against your better instincts.”

“Maybe. But haven’t you ever gone ahead with something when your instincts were telling you to run, Mr. McKinnon?”

He thought of how his own instincts were warning him right now to run away from this woman with her expressive eyes and her passionate defense of her brother. If he let her, he had a strong feeling she could be hazardous not only to this project but, worse, to his heart.

“Listen, I know a great diner in Draper,” he said, deciding to ignore his better judgment. “What do you say I buy you a cup of coffee and we can talk about the book? I’ll see if I can allay some of your concerns—and maybe convince you to call me Wyatt.”

Indecision flickered on her features. She started to nibble her lip, then checked the motion. “All right,” she said, with a quick glance at her watch. “I have a study group at seven but I’m free until then.”

Wyatt refused to worry about the excitement flowing through him at the idea of spending a few more minutes with Taylor Bradshaw.

Chapter 3

He beat her to the diner.

Despite the hour—too early for dinner, too late for lunch—several of the booths at Dewey’s were full when Wyatt walked inside alone. The squat, unassuming restaurant served to-die-for mashed potatoes and several kinds of divine pie. It was a popular spot with visitors to the prison and with guards after their shifts.

He had always found it odd how much economic development seemed to spring up around prisons, the thriving little microeconomies correctional facilities fostered.

Taylor arrived just as the hostess was finding a booth for them. “Sorry,” she said, somewhat breathlessly. “I wasn’t paying attention and drove right past the place.”

“No problem. You’re here now.”

They slid into opposite sides of the brown vinyl booth with the awkwardness of near-strangers suddenly finding themselves in close quarters. After a few moments of perusing the menu, Taylor ordered a chicken taco salad and a diet cola while he settled for coffee and a slice of Dewey’s famous boysenberry pie.

“I didn’t have time for lunch today,” Taylor explained after the waitress walked away to give their order to the kitchen, “and my study group will probably go long past dinnertime. This might be my only chance to eat until midnight.”

“What class is your study group for?”

She made a face. “Constitutional law. My least favorite class. I need all the help I can get in there.”

“Why would a medical student need to study constitutional law?” he asked, genuinely baffled.

“A medical student wouldn’t. It’s a requirement for second-year law students, though.”